Izzy and Strat Tour The Hollywood Museum of Celebrity Underwear.

    Now if I'm going to be honest, it would probably be best starting out by admitting that Izzy Morrison and Strat Parson were never in their wildest dreams ever going to be rocket scientists, or even lab technicians for that matter. The best they could ever hope for in that regard would probably be as participants in consumer product testing.

Truth is they were fired from every fast food place that was foolish enough to hire them in the first place, Izzy once got fired from a Burger King in LaBrea for telling a customer, "If you knew what was in that burger, you'd never eat it." And Strat once took off from his job as a fry cook for over week and returned thinking his job would still be there waiting. In that one, the manager had to fill in and was so angry at having to actually work he threatened to kill Strat and got fired too. The duo still studiously avoids the area around Disneyland because they worry about running into the man.

     Not the sharpest tool in the shed is a phrase that doesn't nearly do justice to the level of ignorance these two lovable dimwits manifest. It would have to be adjusted to say something more like, Not the sharpest tool in a Home Depot warehouse that specialized in something like manufacturing sponges.

    But both had valid excuses. Izzy's parents were functionally illiterate members of a cult that required an oath never to ever learn to read, write, or ever use any formal logic. Truth be told, in a just universe, they probably should have been prohibited from marrying. The official slogan of the cult was 'Ignorance is Bliss.' One member, and only one member, of the cult was exempted from the requirements and given the task of memorizing the slogan because nobody else could spell the words, or read them for that matter. The cult was named The Followers of Oral Commandments.

   Strat, on the other hand, was named after his dad's third favorite guitar. He had a brother named Gipson and a sister named Epiphone. His dad Geezer was fired from the LA based heavy metal band Lucifer's Loogie because he couldn't remember the three word choruses he was required to sing and kept mumbling things like 'Feel Me, Satin" that put him at odds with the rest of his band-mates. The band's back-up singer Raven Moskewitz went with him mainly because she liked how he looked in his Ozzie is Not God T-shirt (the word God crossed-out).

      Raven only found out she was pregnant with Gipson after one of her groupie friends told her that the PH test strips she had bought at a local Target were supposed to be used for testing the water of fish tanks and had very little, if anything, to do with determining pregnancy. Geezer and her had a lot of arguments over it because he was convinced that the mistake was part of huge government conspiracy, she, on the other hand, believed it was just a misunderstanding.

    It didn't help matters that they also smoked a lot of weed.

    In their role of doing consumer testing, Izzy and Strat got chosen to participate in a survey that sought to discover why Hollywood tourism had fallen over thirty % during the Covid years. Teams of two were sent out to visit several carefully selected areas and institutions such as Grumman's Chinese Theater. The flier that came in the mail told Izzy and Strat that their job was to visit the somewhat obscure Hollywood Museum of Celebrity Underwear. Strat was disappointed because he really wanted to put his hands in those hand prints at the theater. Izzy told him, "Screw that, man! We could have got the Whiskey or the Troubadour."


   The Hollywood Museum of Celebrity Underwear was located not exactly on the strip but rather on a side street and had to be accessed by going down an alley between two  deserted looking brick warehouses. It was easy to find though because the huge red letters on the side of one of the buildings read, 'HOLLYWOOD UNDERWEAR' with an equally large red arrow pointing in the direction of the museum. The Museum was created in 1952 by a German refugee named Lars Kommando. He later laid claim to being the person who first coined the term 'going commando," but when he asked his wife Lois to validate the claim, she used to say, "You're full of shit, Lars. You always were."

   On entering the building, the boys quickly discovered that Lars was an absentee owner; at ninety-three, he and Lois had retired to Palm Springs, leaving the actual running of the iconic institution to their rather slack-jawed son-in law, Luther, a cretinous looking moron if there ever was one. For one thing, the grimy, muscle shirt he was wearing when they came in, was a couple of sizes too small, exposing a hairy and rather disconcerting looking belly-button. Another off-putting trait Luther possessed was the fact that he was a chain-smoker's chain-smoker, and that he was permanently surrounded by a nicotine cloud. On the folding table that served in lieu of an actual ticket booth, there was a large Folgers coffee can full cigarette butts, so many butts that it gave the illusion that Luther was collecting them for some unknownreason.

    "That'll be twenty dollars," Luther spat at them as they entered, sounding kind of mad, like he was little bit perturbed by their presence as if they had interrupted his smoking.

      "Sign says 10% off for two," Strat said pointing at the sign behind Luther."

        Luther sneered, "Just my luck, someone who could read." He reached into the cardboard box with a Nike sign on the side, and selected two singles and made quite a show of handing one each to the guys.

         Izzy explained why they'd come and pulled out a little blue note-book from his back pocket. He then rummaged around in one of his front pockets and came up with a stub of a pencil.  "For the sake of our reporting, I need to ask you whether or not you guys sell concessions here, you know, something like pop-corn or hot-dogs."

        Luther stubbed out a cigarette before answering, "This is an underwear museum, dude. People don't come here to eat pop-corn or hot-dogs. They come here to see underwear. Now, we do have some water bottles in that fridge over there that we sell for a dollar a pop. He pointed at refrigerator in the corner of the room that did, in fact, have a sign on it that said, "Water $1.00' Then he added,"For some reason, looking at underwear makes people thirsty. Never had no one asked me for some pop-corn though. Can I interest you in a water?"

         Izzy and Strat declined. Luther taking no umbrage, just mumbled, "Don't say I didn't warn ya."

       They entered into the large room where the museum formally began and immediately noticed a pair of white tidy-whites in a large black frame. To the left of the framed undies was a smaller picture of Tom Cruise as he looked in the famous Risky Business dance scene.

     Izzy was the first to point out, "Lookie there, Strat. That's a genuine certificate of verification. That means these are the real deal." He then pulled the note-book back out and wrote something in it.

        "Damn it to Hell, Iz. They're in a museum ain't they? What do you think they was going do, just hang up any old pair of shorts up there? People in Los Angeles would catch on to that scam pretty damn easy if you ask me."

       The rest of the wall was covered with pictures of famous scenes from Tom Cruise's other film roles.

        "Hey, Strat, I wondered what kind of underwear do you think Jack Reacher wears?"

        "Can't say. I bet ya they'd be pretty comfortable though. I wish they had something from Interview with a Vampire."

         "Me too. That would be cool."

       On the wall next to the Cruise exhibit was the framed underwear that Marilyn Monroe wore in the movie The Seven Year Itch surrounded by several pictures of the blonde bombshell.

         "Dang, I bet they paid a pretty penny to get them drawers. I heard Joe DiMaggio had them checked for JFK's fingerprints."

       "No doubt. I wish Geezer was here. That dude loved him some Marilyn Monroe." 

       The two of them continued through the museum, going from room room occasionally calling out to each other to make sure that the other noticed every discovery.

        "Look Phoebe Cates, Fast Times at Ridgemont High."

        "Technically, dude, those are bikini bottoms."

        "Hey look, Strat! Rocky Horror! Take my picture!

        "Fuck me! That's the chick from Alien!"

    "Oh man, the girl from Empire Records! That's Aerosmith's daughter"

      They came to a stop when they stood in front of a picture of a braces-wearing Anthony-Michael Hall from Sixteen Candles. Strat even genuflected and Izzy went completely speechless for a moment. They were talking about how Molly Ringwald's famous panties from the movie were probably going to be the highlight of the entire museum, and mainly because Anthony Michael Hall was one of their biggest heroes; they ranked him right up there with Mike Myers and Dana Carvey. But as they were talking, a skinny man in a black hoodie came out of room to their right and shook his head and said, "Get's better in there."

     So, they hustled over to that room which was darkened, and they had to part some curtains in order to enter. When they went in they saw the light was focused on a large frame that appeared to contain no underwear at all. Confused they noticed a neon sign over the entrance to the room that read IMPLIED. And as they got closer to the frame they saw pictures of Mel Gibson wearing a kilt and a sign that said the frame contained the non-underwear that Gipson wore in the movie Brave Heart. 

       Strat was starting to voice his confusion, but Izzy cut him off with a curt, "Shut-up fool, everybody knows that them Scottish dudes never wore nothing under them kilts." That admonition stopped Strat in his tracks. Then when they turned to leave, they noticed that there was another empty frame on the opposite wall.

       They approached it with caution. 

        "Fucking Sharon Stone! You gotta be kidding!"

       They stayed in that room for a while and emerged star struck and wonder-eyed.

      "Man Strat, I gotta admit that when we first got this assignment I was worried it might be a rip-off?"

       "Me too. I didn't want to say nothing though."

        "Look, dude. There's one more room. Let's check it out."

       The room was even darker than the previous one. They had to push open a heavy oak door. A spot light mounted on the center of the ceiling shined down on two small frames each containing a fig leaf.

        "Oh Man! Oh Man! You gotta be kidding me, Strat. I heard about these. They were the first underwear ever. This has been here in Hollywood this whole time?"

      "That's stupid, where else would they be? This here city is home of the Angels remember?"

       They approached the frames reverently with caution. Izzy told Strat, "Be very careful how you breathe on them, man. They gotta be at least a couple hundred years old."